How Ricciardo became an F1 winner

A year ago, Daniel Ricciardo's future was far from certain. EDD STRAW explains how the Australian learned the lessons of his struggles of this time last year and used them to win the Canadian GP

Twelve months ago, Daniel Ricciardo was at a career crossroads. After a strong end to the previous season and some promising early performances in 2013, he endured poor Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix weekends, during which he was comfortably outperformed by Toro Rosso team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne. The timing of this mini-slump couldn't have been worse, and it might have changed the whole course of his life.

A week and a half later, on the eve of the British GP weekend, came the announcement that a vacancy would be opening up at Red Bull thanks to Mark Webber's switch to sportscars. Ricciardo had a shot, but things weren't going well.